Verb

(en verb)

(obsolete) To spread out, to unfurl.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.v:

The wearie Traueiler, wandring that way, / Therein did often quench his thristy heat, / And then by it his wearie limbes display , / Whiles creeping slomber made him to forget / His former paine [...].

To show conspicuously; to exhibit; to demonstrate; to manifest.

* , chapter=12

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=1 citation , passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, […].}}

To make a display; to act as one making a show or demonstration.

(Shakespeare)

(military) To extend the front of (a column), bringing it into line.

(Farrow)

(printing, dated) To make conspicuous by using large or prominent type.

(obsolete) To discover; to descry.

* Chapman

And from his seat took pleasure to display / The city so adorned with towers.

Verb

(illustrat)

(obsolete) To shed light upon; to illuminate.

* Were the Moon smooth, as a looking glass, a very small part would be seen by any particular eye to be illustrated by the Sun.

* Chapman

Here, when the moon illustrates all the sky.

To clarify something by giving, or serving as, an example or a comparison.

* Milton

To prove him, and illustrate his high worth.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=September 7 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Moldova 0-5 England , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=England were graphically illustrating the huge gulf in class between the sides and it was no surprise when Lampard added the second just before the half hour. Steven Gerrard found his Liverpool team-mate Glen Johnson and Lampard arrived in the area with perfect timing to glide a header beyond Namasco.}}

* We illustrate our definitions by including quotations or simple examples.

To provide a book or other publication with pictures, diagrams or other explanatory or decorative features.

* The economics textbook was illustrated with many graphs.

(obsolete) To give renown or honour to; to make illustrious; to glorify.

* Milton

Matter to me of glory, whom their hate / Illustrates .